So this is an interesting one...
Such an arrogant pickle, yet the brat is on target to be THE greatest stage winner the Tour has ever seen in it's entire history.
Barring an untimely shortened career, Cavy will surpass everybody by a LONG ways.

Thing is, the guy is a' love him or hate him' kinda guy; the fact that he will be ETCHED into the history books must be a very tough pill to swallow for those on the Cavy hate camp.

On another note, we have seen 'great' champion's attributes influence the TDFs route, for example the days of popular Marco Pantani and French climber Richard verenque was just a mountain fest, and lets not forget how they love to favor routes that help if there is a current French champion with particular strengths. At times the organizers have actually made routes more challenging to champions they 'didn't like'
I wonder if Cavy gains an extremely large margin if they will have 1 sprint stage in the whole tour out of spite. The organizers are well known for this.

I'd have to do some research but I think B. Hinault has the most stage wins. Maybe E. Merckxx...

Bernard is not even close to Eddy. I don't rememebr his totals off the top of my head, but he is in a tie for the most wins in a single TDF at 8, something he did twice. Bernard is in a tie for 5th at 7 for a single TDF (which he also may have done twice, I'm sure he at least has a second at 6).

Bikes: A Home Built All Rounder, Bianchi 928, Specialized Langster, Dahon Folder

Posts: 7,073

Mentioned: 6 Post(s)

Tagged: 0 Thread(s)

Quoted: 1021 Post(s)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Keith99

Bernard is not even close to Eddy. I don't rememebr his totals off the top of my head, but he is in a tie for the most wins in a single TDF at 8, something he did twice. Bernard is in a tie for 5th at 7 for a single TDF (which he also may have done twice, I'm sure he at least has a second at 6).

Did you see my second post?

__________________3ALARMER IN 2020 !...............................................Put 'em all in Texas.

Sprinters careers are short because when they old they lose speed but well... when you get to the top too early you get older faster too. Yes if it wasnt for his team cav wouldnt do it alone, the stages they lost was because the team cracked.

My only problem with Cav now is that phill and paul and the darn versus is all about him being that they have at least 40 more racers to talk about. But no, cav here and there. Cav i believe is going to another team next year so who knows what it will happen to him. Maybe the darn team wont be even there next year. There is a lot of tour yet and in my opinion he wont win the green this year because many of the other guys who want the green jersey can climb better than cav e.g the spaniards.

Sadly the rabobank tracker guy who should beat him with 1 leg and blind eyes suck at the road.

Not in time, I started my reply and got distracted, by the time I hit save your second post was in. I did see yuor second post when I started to edit mine to include the information in your second post.

Cav is the fastest sprinter in pro cycling. He also has the best lead out in pro cycling. But he can do it without his team as he proved with his first stage win of this years tour.

And with his wins last year after Renshaw got thrown out. He's perfectly capable of poaching on another team's wheels. I've been watching road racing for almost forty years and I've never seen anyone, not even Maertens, who could so consistently outpace the fastest men around.

As for the greatest ever stage winner, he may yet surpass Merckx's number of wins. But Cavendish is never going to win any stages by over eight minutes by riding away from the whole field in the mountains...

And with his wins last year after Renshaw got thrown out. He's perfectly capable of poaching on another team's wheels. I've been watching road racing for almost forty years and I've never seen anyone, not even Maertens, who could so consistently outpace the fastest men around.

As for the greatest ever stage winner, he may yet surpass Merckx's number of wins. But Cavendish is never going to win any stages by over eight minutes by riding away from the whole field in the mountains...

Actually not the whole field. There were only 7 other riders in his group going over the Tourmalet. The rest had already been dropped. What makes it insanely impressive is that this was the next to last climb and there was a pretty long runout after the final climb. But that group of 6 riders (plus Eddy's teammate Vandenbossche) could not make up any time on that flat.

And it was just under 8 minutes 7'57".

Won GC by 17'54"
Won Points 244 to the second of 149
Won KOM 155 to second 94
Won Team championship.
Won final stage (A time trial).

I don't think he is the greatest tour rider ever. But right now no one seems to be able to catch him on the sprint, and he might be one of the best sprinters of all time. Also, I agree that the HTC lead out man Renshaw gets really under appreciated.